


you're gonna wish you never had met me

by cosmicocean



Series: rolling in the deep [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Padmé Amidala Lives, leia organa is very tired and very angry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 14:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8492488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicocean/pseuds/cosmicocean
Summary: “The Empire cannot be allowed to continue,” she says. “The Empire has assumed that we will not care. That we are too scared. Courage comes from fear. And our fear makes us strong. Let them frighten us. Let them frighten me. Because I am frightened.” She feels her fists ball at her side. “Lord Vader, Emperor Palpatine, remember. I have lost my father. I have lost a world. And I am coming for you.”Leia Kenobi, struggling to keep her head above water.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A note: the majority of this is based in Empire, and not all of it has changed. I've done my best to include Padmé, and the changes that come with her survival, but I've included the bits that haven't so we can get a glimpse into Leia's perspective during the movie. Please bear that in mind when reading.

“You’re better at this than I am,” her mother says to her one day, as she charts out possible places for their base to move to. She looks up. Her mother is wearing a simple, long white shirt over black pants, dressed as any Rebel might. Her hair is simply patchworked down the back of her head. The clothes and hair are insignificant, however, to the bearing of her mother. She has heard the Rebels whispering how her mother was a queen once. There is certainly no denying it. 

“I could never be as good at anything of this sort as you,” Leia Kenobi tells her mother. Padmé Kenobi smiles in return, albeit sadly.

“You are a magnificent leader, and a talented Jedi,” she answers. “I think you’re better at most things than I could ever dream of being.”

 

Leia goes down sometimes to the hangars, to watch Han work on his old rust bucket. She doesn’t know why, exactly. She finds it soothing, she supposes, to see him deftly (and sometimes not so deftly) inspect the inner workings of the old ship he clearly loves so much.

After she’s done it a few times, he looks down at her, pushes his goggles up, and says with a grin “look any longer, Princess, and I’ll have to suspect you’re gonna sell the plans to my ship to some crook.” He’s working with a blow torch on top of the ship at the time. “I’d hate to have to buy them back from you.”

Leia raises an eyebrow.

“Captain Solo,” she replies archly. “You couldn’t afford it.”

He burns his hand.

 

Luke looks at her guiltily every time he sees her, and finally she can’t take it anymore. One night she walks through the trees of their current hiding planet from her little hut to the small one Luke possesses at the moment, her hair down. There are very few people who have seen her with her hair down. One is dead, the other is in a separate hut, and the last looks at her like he killed one of her plants by accident. She knocks on the door. 

“Come in.”

Leia steps in and Luke looks up from his bed, where he’s taking apart and cleaning his lightsaber.

“Oh.”

She sits cross-legged on his floor. “I know Papa appears to you more than to me,” she tells him bluntly, leading right into it. He carefully puts the leftover pieces of his saber under his bed so he won’t lose them and looks down at his sister. 

“I’m sorry,” he says sincerely, and that’s the thing about Luke. Leia can lie, easy as breathing. It was required knowledge, certainly, becoming an active part of the Rebellion as a teenager. Luke’s lies are more circumspect, an aspect of the truth in every falsehood he tells. But when it comes to lying to _her?_ Luke’s hopeless. Besides which, it’s obvious that he means it. 

“It’s not your fault.” She curls her legs under her. “Does he… has he made any suggestion as to..?”

“He says I need more guidance than you do.”

Leia pushes her hair back and looks down. “I don’t feel like I need less guidance,” she murmurs. “Luke, I’ve just… I watched a planet full of people I’d come to love for two years be completely destroyed. By Tarkin and…” she can’t say it. She can’t. “By someone our parents knew. Can you imagine what… I feel like I’m _lost_ , Luke.”

Luke crawls off his bed and wraps his arms around his sister. She clutches at them and presses her face in his neck.

“People look up to me now,” she whispers. “I’m terrified.”

Luke strokes her hair. “You’re my sister,” he whispers back. “If you ever need to have something to hold onto, remember that.”

They sleep in the same bed that night, something they haven’t done since Papa died, and before that since they were kids.

 

Leia storms off to her mother after having a shouting match with Han in one of the hallways.

“He is the single most _infuriating_ being I’ve ever met,” she fumes while Mom calmly copies something from a holographic news outlet to paper so it can be transferred to General Dodonna.

“I’m sure he is, dear,” Mom says serenely. Leia narrows her eyes at her mother, certain that she’s somehow being mocked.

 

“We want you to appear on a pirate transmission on the Holonet,” Mon Mothma says to Luke, Leia, and Mom. She’s called the three of them into her office, which at the moment is just a tent. “We think it would be a good idea for you to reveal that you were once the Senator from Naboo, Padmé.”

Mom purses her lips. “Revealing that these two are Amidala children is just going to raise the bounties on their heads.”

Luke and Leia look at each other.

“Gee,” Luke says dryly. “It’s not like I blew up the Death Star or Leia’s a face of the Rebellion or anything.”

“Not at all,” Leia agrees. “If only we were people in our own merit.”

Mon Mothma looks down in an attempt to hide a smile. Mom gives her the look that had always quelled them when they were children. 

“She’s right,” Leia points out. “If you tell them you were originally Padmé Amidala, sympathy goes up. I’ve been around the Core Worlds, Mom, people remember you well. Your name still holds some currency there. If we release this news now, we have the opportunity to do it before the Empire does it, and they _will_ do it, and tell our own story before the Emperor tells it for us.”

Mom looks at her, head tilted slightly, and smiles.

“Told you that you were better at this than I am,” she says.

 

Han greets her from a week long absence by dumping a rough cloth bag on the table in front of her. She looks up from where she’s typing up schematics.

“How was your vacation?” she asks dryly. “Have fun?” Han scowls.

“Open the bag, Princess.”

Leia does so, then stills. She carefully pulls one of many Alderaanian coins out of the sack and runs it through her fingertips.

“Where did you find these?” she asks softly.

“Took me a week to track them down,” he answers with a shrug. “Thought you might like to wear one round your neck for your broadcast or something.”

Leia looks up at Han. Then she stands and, somewhat hesitantly, embraces him. He’s frozen for a moment, then hugs her back. He gives good hugs, Leia observes absently.

She releases him and looks away so he can’t see the tears in her eyes. She clears her throat.

“Go check on your ship, hotshot,” she tells him. “It’s probably smoking by now after such a long journey.”

He doesn’t say anything back. She knows he can tell what she means.

 

Leia offers to help Luke pick clothes out. Luke gives her a regal look.

“Please,” he says loftily. “We all know I developed a better fashion sense than you.”

She shoves him with a laugh.

 

Leia doesn’t end up wearing the coins around her neck, but has a small amount of them turned into a headpiece. 

(she also has a single one put on the charm bracelet given to her what seems like lifetimes ago by Luke)

(to remember her planet by, nothing more, she tells herself)

She wears them along with flowers braided into a bun, and a white dress with a a patchwork of gold squares around her waist as a belt, the charm bracelet around her wrist. Her mother wears flowers so purple they appear to be dead around her head and in her tight bun in the nape of her neck, and a gold dress with a cloak that appear almost to be sleeves that reaches down to pool at her feet.

“You know,” Leia murmurs to her mother. “That Vader’s almost certainly going to see this. He’s not going to react favorably.”

Mom pats her hair absently to make sure that it’s in place. “That’s his problem,” she says calmly. “Not ours.”

Leia remembers, once more, how strongly and admires her mother.

Mom gestures at the bracelet, a little hesitantly, her unflappability faltering suddenly. “Do you know where the Japor snippet comes from?”

Leia rubs it between her fingers. “Luke told me.”

“Are you worried about him seeing it?”

She is. She takes a deep breath and smiles bravely at her mother. “That’s his problem. Not ours.”

Mom smiles, and gently pats her cheek.

Luke approaches, dressed in a tight blue sleeveless robe over a leather jacket and black pants, a purple sash peeking out from underneath. “I didn’t think the Rebellion had clothing that wasn’t utilitarian,” he says. “I’m impressed.”

Leia reaches up and tousles her brother’s hair. “Couldn’t do anything with this, hm?”

Luke adopts that regal look again. “You can’t do anything with excellence.”

Leia laughs, some of her butterflies disappearing. She suspects that may have been Luke’s intention.

Mon Mothma approaches them.

“You all look very nice,” she says with a smile. “Are you ready?”

Leia looks at her twin, who takes her hand and squeezes it. 

“We can do anything,” he says confidently. She doesn’t know if she can believe him, but his headstrong faith bolsters her courage a little bit. She squares her shoulder and gives Mon Mothma her calmest politician look.

“We’re ready when you are, ma’am,” she tells her. Mom nods, just as stately. 

Mon Mothma steps back and gestures at the crew behind her. “Prepare to begin the tape.”

Leia, Luke, and Mom arrange themselves so Mom is slightly higher on the dais than Luke and Leia, Luke on her right and Leia on her left. Luke looks more solemn than Leia’s seen him since Papa’s death. Leia schools her calm politician look into the look of someone who can take a punch, physically and metaphorically. The look that she cultivated as Senator Leia Organa, and that she’s learning to mold into Rebel Leader Leia Kenobi. She doesn’t need to look at her mother to know there’s a similar expression on her face. 

“Greetings,” her mother begins. “You may know me as Padmé Kenobi, wife to General Obi-Wan Kenobi and member of the Rebel Alliance. However, this name is only one I took on recently. I was once Padmé Amidala Naberrie, Senator of the Republic, former Queen of Naboo, and wife to Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker. After Lord Vader’s attempt on my life and the birth of my twins who you see before you now, Leia and Luke, I faked my own death and began my work in the Rebellion with the assistance of those such as Bail Organa, Mon Mothma, and the man who would someday become my husband, Obi-Wan “Ben” Kenobi.

“I reveal this to you now because, after the destruction of Alderaan by the Death Star, and in turn the destruction of the Death Star by my son Luke, the time for hiding has gone. The time for _action_ has come.”

“The Empire can’t get away with this,” Luke takes his turn. “ _Billions_ of people lost, all for a show of power. Your home, your worlds, your lives. They mean nothing to the Empire, so long as they can remain in power.”

“We are fighting for your lives,” Leia says. Her voice is lower than her brother’s, lacking the energy he’s always had in spades over her. But while her brother is honest intentions and bright eyes, Leia is quiet steel and the knife in the side, and she puts that in her voice now. “Not them. Never them.”

Leia stares at the prompter. The words blur together. She takes a deep breath and ignores them.

“The Empire cannot be allowed to continue,” she says. “The Empire has assumed that we will not care. That we are too scared. Courage comes from fear. And our fear makes us strong. Let them frighten us. Let them frighten _me_. Because I am frightened.” She feels her fists ball at her side. “Lord Vader, Emperor Palpatine, remember. I have lost my father. I have lost a world. _And I am coming for you._ ”

Mon Mothma gestures at them to signify that the recording has ceased. Luke walks up to her and wraps his arms around her. She reaches up to grab her brother’s wrists and closes her eyes. 

“You did really well,” he whispers. “You scared me. I won’t pull your hair anymore.”

Leia chokes on a laugh. Her mother touches her hair lightly.

“I love you,” she says softly. Leia nods in response and her mother vanishes, presumably to consult with Mon Mothma.

Han walks up as Luke releases her. “Most serious I ever seen you, kid,” he drawls. “Doesn’t suit you. Do something funny.”

Luke grins and punches Han’s shoulder. “I’m gonna go find Wedge and see if he’ll fly with me, that was exhausting.” He disappears, leaving Han and Leia alone. The swagger seems to drop from Han’s shoulders.

“You did a good job,” he tells her. “You’re at your best when you’re off script, Princess.” He grins. “You’ve gone rogue.”

Leia flushes. “Thank you.”

His grin transforms into something softer, something gentler. “I’m serious. You’re strong as hellfire, Leia.”

She swallows, ignores the swooping in her stomach, and nods weakly. Han gently reaches out, touches her shoulder awkwardly, so light it could be barely there, and leaves. Leia watches him go.

 

Enlistments to the Rebellion goes up, as do reports of strife in the Core Worlds. Leia is proud.

 

It’s been six months since the Death Star blew up, and their base is on Jakku, a place Han loudly hates.

“It’s a _junkyard_ ,” he complains at lunch. Han likes to invite himself to sit with Leia and Luke during their lunch break, sometimes to Leia’s irritation, sometimes not. “It’s a hot, sandy junkyard of a planet.”

“We grew up on a hot, sandy junkyard of a planet,” Luke pipes up. “We’re used to it.”

“Yeah, well, I grew up on Corellia,” Han retorts. “We had _snow_. And _mountains._ None of this…” he sweeps his hand over imaginary Jakku terrain, despite the fact they’re in an underground base. “ _This._ ”

Han’s told Leia about Corellia before, when Leia would sit on top of the _Falcon_ with him as he worked on it. He talked about vast seas he played in as a child, forests with trees so high he could never climb to the top of them. Leia in return told him about Tatooine, about Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen’s moisture farm and bartering with Jawas.

“I never got to say goodbye to them,” Leia had murmured sadly. “I never got to say goodbye to a lot of people.”

Han had looked up, goggles haphazardly pushed up his forehead. He hesitated, then edged forwards and kissed her on the forehead. It had been a startlingly tender gesture. They never talk about it.

Han may hate Jakku, but it doesn’t stop him from stumbling over his words and dropping his crate when he sees Leia in her Jakku outfit, a wrap-around sleeveless shirt that bares her midriff despite the belt around it, tight tan striped pants leading down to open toed boots, her hair up in a tight bun. Leia feels oddly satisfied. Luke looks vaguely amused.

A ship comes in at the three month mark and a bunch of refugees come down. Her mother meets all of them. She’s assigned it as her job, to greet all the new people and take care of them. Leia always goes with her, sometimes helps her. As the refugees come down, the captain follows, and smiles lovingly at Leia. Leia’s heart leaps.

“Aunt Ahsoka!” Leia runs at Aunt Ahsoka, who lifts her up and swings her around. Leia doesn’t often feel like a child anymore, feels too old to mention most days, but she hasn’t seen her aunt in two and a half years and Leia is suddenly her age, suddenly younger. Aunt Ahsoka puts her down and puts a hand on her cheek.

“Look at you, sweetheart,” she says softly. “You’re so grown up.”

Leia gives her a watery smile. “I missed you, Aunt Ahsoka.”

Aunt Ahsoka hugs her again, stabler this time. “I’m so sorry about your father,” she whispers. Leia squeezes her a little tighter.

“Me too,” she answers.

Leia hears Han’s voice and pulls back. Han’s holding blankets for Mom, who’s handing them out to the refugees. Han’s making polite small talk with them. Mom smiles at Aunt Ahsoka and goes back to work. Han winks at Leia and then turns to Mom when she asks for another blanket.

“Who’s that?” Aunt Ahsoka asks. Leia does not enjoy her arch tone.

“An idiot,” she answers. Aunt Ahsoka smirks.

“I see.”

Han runs out of blankets and swaggers up to her. “Princess,” he says, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend? You’re being very unPrincesslike.”

She scowls and shrugs his arm off her shoulders. “Don’t call me that. This is Ahsoka Tano. She was a member of the Jedi Order and now works for the Rebellion. She’s also my aunt. Aunt Ahsoka, this is Han Solo. He helped blow up the Death Star,” she adds grudgingly. 

Aunt Ahsoka raises an eyebrow. “The same Han Solo than completed the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs?”

Han shuffles, looking suddenly nervous. Aunt Ahsoka has that impression on people, when she wants to. “Yes, ma’am.”

Aunt Ahsoka sizes him up for several more moments where Han shifts from foot to foot and Leia gives her aunt her best possible death glare, hoping Han can’t see it. Finally, she says “that was impressive, good job!” and beams at him. Han looks startled at the sudden change in demeanor.

“Thanks, ma’am.”

“No problem!”

“Han,” Mom calls and Han heads over to her. Leia glowers at Aunt Ahsoka.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“ _That._ Put him off.”

Aunt Ahsoka looks perfectly innocent.

“I was under the impression you _wanted_ me to put him off a little bit. Unless that’s not really what you wanted at all?”

Leia frowns. “Shut up.”

Luke comes running over. “Auntie Soka!”

Aunt Ahsoka laughs and ruffles Luke’s hair as she hugs him. “Hey, kiddo. Look at you! You got tall!”

Luke grins. “You bet. You gotta come see Mama and meet Han.”

Aunt Ahsoka’s eyes sparkled. “We’ve met.”

 

Leia’s in her room brushing her hair when she smells something, an odd mix of purple blossoms and something a little spicier. She’d never been able to pin down what the latter was, even though that scent carries in almost all her memories, and certainly every single of her early ones. She turns around.

He’s sitting on her bed, the way she saw him last.

They sit in silence for a few minutes. Finally, she says “did Luke tell you I talked to him?”

“No,” Papa answers. “I knew on my own.”

She walks over to her bed and sits across from him. He smiles at her a little sadly.

“You got older.”

“So did you.” She tugs her hair into a loose ponytail. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too, Leia.”

“You’re training Luke to be a Jedi, aren’t you?”

“It’s what he wants to be.” 

“Why not me?”

“Because you don’t want to.”

“I would have liked the option to tell you myself.”

“You’re right.” Papa sighs. “When you were children, Ahsoka and I trained you in the Force equally. Your mother wasn’t thrilled, you know. She was a Senator. She didn’t trust Jedi long before the fall of the Republic. She trusted your father and-“

“Anakin,” she presses. “Not my father. Anakin. You’re my father.”

He smiles a little, his sadness seeming to lift just a little bit. “Anakin. She trusted Anakin and I, and that was about it. But we could tell that you were powerful from when you were very little, and it needed to be done. Luke embraced it more warmly than you did, I always thought. You have a politician’s mind. Luke has the mind of a Jedi. You’re right, though. I should have given you the option.”

“Thank you.” Leia scoots a little closer to her father and leans her head into his shoulder. It’s warm and feels almost like the tingling of static electricity. “I don’t know what to do, Papa.”

“No. Neither do I, dear child.” He wraps an arm around her. “Neither do I.”

She’s not sure when she falls asleep, but she knows she wakes up with a blanket over her, tucked carefully in around the edges.

 

Han’s looking at her different. Leia doesn’t like it. She overhears her mother telling Luke that it’s “sweet” and she likes that even less.

 

And then he’s going to leave while they’re on Hoth, and she doesn’t like that _at all_.

Leia’s fine. She’s _fine,_ even when he looks at her uncertainly, not when he looks at her like he’s been hurt. She’s fine.

“Han!”

Han stops and turns in the rough hewn icy corridor. She didn’t entirely expect him to, and it takes her off guard a touch. “Yes, your highness?”

He’s never even cared that she wasn’t really even a Princess. “I thought you decided to stay.”

“Well, the bounty hunter we ran into on Ord Mantell changed my mind.”

“Han, we need you!” Too pleading. She tries to firm up her resolve.

“ _We?_ ”

“Yes.”

“What about what _you_ need?”

And here it comes, the conversation Leia’s been avoiding for so long. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she lies angrily.

Han shakes his head, just as frustrated. “You probably don’t.”

“And what _precisely_ am I supposed to know?”

“Come on! You want me to stay because of how you feel about me!”

Leia’s stomach lurches. “Yes,” she deflects. “You’re a great help to us. You’re a natural leader.”

“No, that’s not it.”

She grits her teeth. “You’re imagining things.”

“Am I?” he retorts. “Then why’d you follow me? Afraid I’d leave without giving you a goodbye kiss?”

“I’d just as soon kiss a Wookiee!” she snarls back.

“I could arrange that!” He storms off, yelling behind him as he goes. “You could use a good kiss!”

He leaves with the last word.

She _hates_ it when he does that.

 

“Han’s gone,” Leia tells her mother. She refuses to let any hollowness into her voice. Her mother is studying battle plans.

“I know,” she answers. “He came to say goodbye. Wanted to know where he could find you.” She looks up. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she snaps. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Her mother raises her eyebrows at her, but says nothing more on the subject. “Do you know where your brother is?”

Leia frowns. “He’s not back yet?”

“He hasn’t checked in with me yet and he promised he would when he got back.”

“He might have forgotten. Or Han might be holding him up with a goodbye.” Another reason to dislike him.

“Solo’s gone,” an officer says, coming into the large storage room carrying a crate. Mom has always been happier planning in storage rooms. She says it reminds her of the early days of the Rebellion. 

“We know,” Mom says. “He’s gone off world.”

“No, he’s gone into the snow.”

Leia grabs the officer’s arm as he starts to leave. “What?”

“Kenobi hasn’t come back yet, so Solo went into the snow to get him.”

“Luke’s not back yet?”

“No, ma’ams.”

“And Han went to get him?” Leia demands, fully aware that he’s said exactly that already. “That’s ridiculous. It’s freezing out there, his tauntaun would die.”

The officer shrugs. “Said he’d see me in hell when I told him the same thing.”

Leia releases the officer and looks at her mother, whose brow is now tight-knit with worry.

“They’ll come back,” Leia says. “They will.”

 

They don’t.

Leia and her mother wait by the blast doors, shivering slightly in the cold.Chewbacca sits nearby, his head in his hands. 

“Mistress Leia, Mistress Padmé.” 

Both turn to see C-3PO and R2-D2 approaching.

“Mistress Leia, R2 says he’s been unable to pick up any signals, although he does admit that his own range is far too weak to abandon all hope.”

Her mother smiles, a little strained, and kneels in front of R2-D2. “Thank you,” she says quietly. Leia only nods absently. She doesn’t have the energy to respond past that.

“Senator Kenobi.”

Leia turns. Major Derlin is standing there a little awkwardly, like he’s uncertain about being there but resolved.

“There’s nothing more we can do tonight. The shield doors must be closed.”

She knows he’s not really asking but telling her. She nods anyway. The metal doors rumble and slam shut. Chewbacca howls. Leia wants to, too.

 

Mom brings a blanket to where Leia is sitting on the floor, leaning against the crate where Chewbacca sits still. She wraps Leia in it and sits next to her in an identical blanket. Leia drifts into her instead until she is all the way down and her head is in her mother’s lap.

“They’re alive,” she mumbles. “I’d feel it.”

“I believe you, sweetheart.”

Leia can feel the wavering note in her mother’s voice more than she hears it. She wonders if she’s thinking of Anakin, how he might not have felt that her mother was in fact alive, or the birth of the twins.

She doesn’t ask. It would invite unnecessary comparisons.

 

They all crowd around the transmitter of the comms belong to the pilots out looking for Han and Luke. All of the transmissions are beamed back to base.

“Echo Base,” Rogue Two calls in. “I’ve got something! Not much, but it could be a life form.”

Mom suddenly shoots her hand out and grips Leia’s. Leia looks at her mother, surprised. She forgets sometimes that her mother isn’t the strongest being in the universe. She squeezes back.

“This is Rogue Two, this is Rogue Two. Captain Solo, do you copy? Commander Kenobi, do you copy? This is Rogue Two.”

There’s a pause on Rogue Two’s end, then a snort. Leia knows before he says it what’s going to come back to them, knows that snort could only have come from a snarky comment on Han’s end.

“Echo Base, this is Rogue Two. I found them. Repeat, I found them.”

 

Leia and Mom are running down the hallway alongside the medics when Luke arrives. He’s unconscious and bloody and Leia can still _feel_ him alive, feel his bright spark hovering, but oh _hells_ that’s a lot of blood.

“What happened to him?” Mom demands. Her voice rings with what Leia has always imagined must have been what it sounded like when she was still a queen.

“Wampa attack, ma’am.”

“Is he going to be all right?” Leia asks. She hates how young her voice sounds.

“We have to get him into some bacta, ma’am, if it weren’t for Captain Solo he’d be dead already.”

“Han saved his life?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

Leia touches her mother’s shoulder with her hand quickly. Mom nods and Leia sprints in the opposite direction. Han is at the end of the corridor, covered in what looks like blood (non-human, not his), conferring with Chewbacca. He looks up at the sound of Leia’s running footsteps, face apologetic.

“Sorry, Leia, I know I didn’t get here as fast as I could have-“

Leia collides into him, startling an _oomph_ out of him. She hugs him tightly and after a surprised second he tentatively puts his arms around her in response.

“Thank you,” she whispers. “For bringing my brother back.”

He rests his chin on top of her head. “Any time, Princess.”

She releases him. “I have to go, they’re going to put him into the bacta tank, but- I just-“ 

He nods in understanding and she takes off again.

She doesn’t even tell him how badly he smells.

 

Mom’s asleep by Luke’s side when he wakes up. She had tried to persuade Leia to sleep, and she’d promised, but, well. A lie isn’t necessarily bad when it serves to make your mother feel better.

“How you feeling, little brother?” she whispers.

“Awful,” he mumbles and Leia’s stomach lurches, despite the fact it makes perfect sense he wouldn’t feel well after what he’d been through. Then he cracks an eye open and the corner of his mouth lifts. “Almost like a Wampa attacked me. Do you know if anything like that happened?”

She wants very badly to punch him in the arm. “You’re an awful person and I wish you’d frozen out there in the snow.”

He does grin properly then, albeit weakly. “No, you don’t.”

She takes his hand. “No, I don’t.”

She does fall asleep not long afterwards, Luke’s hand still loosely in her own.

 

Leia’s standing nearby, looking at readings on what the asteroid Luke might have seen in the first place could be with her mother when Han, C-3PO, and R2-D2 come in. C-3PO transmits his and R2’s thanks that he’s all right, and then Han leans over him.

“You don’t look so bad to me. In fact, you look strong enough to wrestle the ears off a Gundark.”

Leia absently wonders if a Gundark is real and something from an Outer Rim world she’s never heard of, or if Han just made it up on the spot. Either way wouldn’t surprise her.

“Well, Your Worship, looks like you managed to keep me around for a little while longer.”

“I had nothing to do with it,” Leia tells him, not even deigning to look up. “General Rieekan thinks it’s dangerous for any ships to leave the system until we’ve activated the energy shield.”

“That’s a good story. I think you just can’t bear to let a gorgeous guy like me out of your sight.”

She _does_ look up at that. She needs a proper glare for this. “I don’t know where you get your delusions, laser-brain.”

Chewbacca growls out a laugh, clearly having more sense than his co-pilot. Han seems a cross between indignant and amused.

“Laugh it up, fuzzball. You didn’t see us in the Southwest Passage.” He wanders up to her and slings an arm around her shoulders. “She expressed her true feelings for me.”

Leia feels a wave from Luke that feels like laughing. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees her mother’s lips barely twitch. Traitors, the pair of them. She shrugs Han’s arm off her and starts sputtering. She _hates_ when she can’t come up with a good response.

“Why, you stuck up… half witted… scruffy looking _nerfherder!_ ”

_Now_ he looks kind of insulted. “Who’s scruffy looking?” He turns to Luke. “Must have hit it pretty close to the mark to get her all riled up like that, huh, kid?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Luke says mildly, still radiating amusement.

“Careful,” Mom says. “I’m still right here. I don’t need to be hearing any of this.”

Leia storms out. It’s not as dignified as she’d like but it’ll do. As she’s leaving, the loudspeakers blare.

“Headquarters personnel, report to command center. I repeat, headquarters personnel, report to command center.”

She’s quickly joined by her mother and Han, all levity forgotten. As much as Han infuriates her (and he does), she can say one thing about him: he’s good in a crisis.

“Senators, Captain,” Rieekan tells them grimly when they arrive, met by Chewbacca. “We have a visitor.”

They hurry over to the readouts. 

“We’ve picked something up outside the base in Zone Twelve, moving east.”

“Then it can’t be one of the creatures that attacked Luke,” Mom murmurs.

“Could be a speeder, one of ours,” Han points out.

“Wait, no.” Leia points. “Looks like there’s something very weak coming through.” They listen to the strange signal as though they’ll know by ear what it means.

“I am fluent in six million forms of communication,” C-3PO says, appearing over Leia’s shoulder. “This signal is not used by the Alliance. It could be an Imperial code.”

Static penetrates the silence for a moment. 

Han snaps into action. “It isn’t friendly, whatever it is. Come on, Chewie, let’s check it out.”

Han radios in that it was a droid of some kind, and when it’s decided that it must be an Imperial probe droid, Rieekan starts the evacuation. Padmé is put in charge of evacuating non-essential personnel and civilian refugees. Leia is given the task of informing the pilots of their task. She stands in a group of them, circled around her.

“All troop carriers will assemble at the north entrance.The heavy transport ships will leave as soon as they're loaded.Only two fighter escorts per ship.The energy shield can only be opened for a short time, so you'll have to stay very close to your transports.”

“Two fighters against a Star Destroyer?”

“The ion cannon will fire several shots to make sure that any enemy ships will be out of your flight path.When you've gotten past the energy shield, proceed directly to the rendezvous point.Understood?”

There’s choruses of agreement and Leia nods, dismissing them. Luke weaves his way through the departing pilots.

“I’m heading for the snowspeeders,” he tells her. “I couldn’t find Mama. If I don’t make it back, will you tell her-“

“Yes,” she cuts him off. He doesn’t need to say what. Luke nods, and gives her a brief hug.

“May the Force be with you, Leia.”

She smiles. “May the Force be with you, Luke.”

He releases her and then he’s gone. Leia’s grateful that he didn’t ask if she would be evacuating the base with the other personnel, so she wouldn’t have to lie to him.

 

Her mother will not be persuaded.

“I’ll go when you do, Leia,” she finally snaps at Leia’s prodding, and _damn_ , she can’t leave, she won’t leave when there are still lives on this base, even as ice chunks start to fall from the ceiling. Leia turns to an aide.

“Evacuate all remaining ground staff,” she orders. The aide quickly moves to pass on the order.

Leia feels Luke reach out; he’s gotten in his X-Wing. He’s survived the ground assault, at least. She refuses to feel grateful yet, shelves all her emotion for later.

“Mom,” she says quickly. “Can you do me a favor?”

She narrows her eyes at Leia. 

“It’s not a trap,” she adds. “Make sure Han got out okay.”

Her face softens slightly. “All right.” Her mother disappears and Leia prays Han will be able to talk her out of evacuating with him. That will take care of three people she cares about, if Han succeeds. 

There’s a blast of fire and Leia stumbles slightly. The building has been blasted, a giant cave-in occupying the space between the control board Leia is stationed at with C-3PO and the exit. She pays it no mind. It’s not like she’ll be getting out of here anyway.

“You all right?”

Leia looks up, startled to see Han standing there, looking a little dusty but no worse for the wear. 

“Yes. Why are you still here?”

“I heard the command center was hit.”

“But you got your clearance to go.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll go. First I’m going to get you to your and your mother’s ship, Chewie’s taking care of her now.”

“Your Highness, we must take this last transport, it’s our only hope,” C-3PO points out. She turns to the controller, speaking rapidly.

“Send all troops in sector twelve to the south slope to protect the fighters.”

Another blast hits the room.

“Come on,” Han says, sounding almost pleading.

“Give the evacuation code signal and get to your transports,” she orders finally, letting Han take her arm and lead her out of the center. The signal ricochets off the corridors that are beginning to fall in around them. Han grabs his comlink.

“Transport, this is Solo. You’d better take off, I can’t get to you. I’ll get the Princess out on the _Falcon_.” He switches frequencies. “Chewie?”

An answering growl.

“Have you got the Senator?”

A growl of agreement.

“Meet us at the _Falcon_ , we can’t get them to the transports in time.”

Han, Leia, and C-3PO meet with Chewbacca and Mom in the hangar. The two of them are pacing as they wait. They dart into the _Millennium Falcon_ ,. Her mother grabs her arm, checks Leia over.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Your brother-“

“Still alive.”

“Good.”

Chewbacca and Han are frantically flipping switches and adjusting gauges. 

“Would it help if I got out and pushed?” Leia demands.

“It might!”

They head for the cockpit, Leia and Han arguing all the way.

“This bucket of bolts is never gonna make it past the blockade.”

“This baby’s got a few surprises left in her, sweetheart,” Han snaps back.

“What can I do?” Her mother asks. 

“Go with Chewbacca, start firing the laser turrets.” Mom disappears with Chewbacca and Han and Leia go into the cockpit.

“Help me start firing her up,” Han says. Leia obeys, flipping the switches Han points to. As Chewbacca and her mother rush back in after, she hears the engine begin to splutter.

“See?” Han exclaims triumphantly.

“Someday you’re going to be wrong,” she retorts while moving to let Chewbacca take over. “And I hope I’m there to see it.”

“Punch it!”

Chewbacca growls in response and the walls rush by the windows. As they lift, Leia feels a sudden shove to the gut and staggers back, catching her mother’s arm so she doesn’t fall. Han half turns to her.

“Princess-“

“Fine,” she gasps, trying to rid herself of the malevolence in her stomach. “Keep going, get us out of here.”

She stumbles into the main room. She hears Han mutter something to Mom and then follow her in.

“Listen, I don’t have a lot of time, I need to get back to the cockpit, but-“

“Vader’s down there.” She’s pressing her hand to her chest, like doing so will destroy the thickness in her blood. “I felt him, it felt the same as it did when…”

Leia’s never really talked about her torture at the hands of Vader before. Not even to Luke, not even to her mother. She’s given it the barest of mentions, evidently while Han was present, because his face softens.

“He’s behind us, Princess.”

Leia nods. “Go make sure he stays that way.”

She sounds a little blunt, even to her own ears, but Han just grins at her and heads back to the cockpit. The grin sounds like it’s short-lived, however, when she hears a groan. She returns to the cockpit, absently putting a hand on her mother’s shoulder and feeling a squeeze in return.

“What’s going on?”

“Star Destroyers, two of them. Coming right at us.”

“Sir, might I suggest-“

“Shut him up or shut him down! Chewie, check the deflector shield!”

Chewbacca barks something in return.

“Oh, great. Well, we can still outmaneuver them.”

The ship rumbles as it gets hit with laser blasts. Her mother is white-knuckling the back of Chewbacca’s seat.

“Leia,” she says in a low voice. “If the Empire takes us-“

“They won’t.” Leia can feel that irrational feeling in the pit of her stomach, the one that screams she won’t give up without a fight, won’t be held captive by the ghoul in black again. “I won’t let them.”

“Leia.”

She looks at Mom and knows that she can see the naked fear in her face. “I won’t let them,” she repeats.

Han and Chewbacca don’t appear to have heard their conversation, or are very good actors. Leia returns her attention to them. “They’re getting closer.”

“Oh yeah?” Han’s eyes have that gleam in them, the one that Leia knows means trouble. “Watch this.”

Han pushes a lever. Nothing happens.

“Watch what?” her mother asks.

Han and Chewbacca look at each other.

“I think we’re in trouble.”

“If I may say so, sir,” C-3PO says. “I noticed earlier that the hyperdrive motivator has been damaged.It's impossible to go to light-speed!”

Han nods. “We’re in trouble.” He gets up and heads for control panels. “Chewbacca, ma’am, could use some help.”

Mom nods. “Leia, stay here, keep an eye on things.”

Leia can do that. She sits in the cockpit, feeling tense and wound up. 

_Leia?_

She looks up, knowing she won’t see her brother even though she just heard him. _Luke?_

_Are you okay?_

The worry is a tight knot in her stomach. _We’ll be fine. What’s going on?_

_I’m not joining the Rebellion at the rendezvous point._

_What?_

_Dad appeared to me, out in the snows. I’m going to a place called Dagobah. A man called Yoda’s going to teach me the ways of the Force._

_You_ know _the ways of the Force._

_Dad says there’s much I don’t know. Apparently Dagobah’s shrouded in the Force, so I may not be able to reach you._

Leia purses her lips. _I don’t like it._

A strain of amusement hits her. _I didn’t think you would._

Another blast rocks the ship. A ripple of concern must contact him because now he sounds worried. _Is everything all right over there?_

_Han’s working on it._ She swallows. _I love you._

_I love you too, Leia._

_May the Force be with you._

_May the Force be with you._

The connection drops right as a giant rock hits them. Leia immediately turns on her comlink.

“Han, get up here!”

Mom, Han and Chewbacca arrive to see an asteroid field laid out before them.

“Asteroids,” her mother murmurs.

“Chewie, set two-seven-one.” Han settles into the command chair.

“What are you doing?” Leia demands. “You’re not _actually_ going to go into an asteroid field?”

“They’d be crazy to follow us, wouldn’t they?”

“You don’t have to do this to impress me,” she mutters.

“Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately three thousand, seven hundred and twenty to one,” C-3PO informs Han.

“Never tell me the odds,” he returns.

Han and Chewbacca navigate the asteroid field successfully at first, and then almost hit a large one. A smaller one hits the _Falcon_ with an ominous crunching sound. Han glances at Leia.

“You said you wanted to be around when I made a mistake, sweetheart, now might be your chance.”

“I take it back,” Leia answers grimly.

“We’re going to get pulverized if we stay out here much longer,” Mom points out. 

“I’m not going to argue with that.” Han fidgets with the controls. “I’m going to try and get in closer to one of the big ones.”

“Closer?”

“Oh, this is suicide!” C-3PO cries. Leia resists the urge to deactivate him. 

Han notices something on his scope and pokes Chewbacca.

“There. That looks pretty good.”

“What looks pretty good?” Leia asks.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” C-3PO says to Mom. “But where are we going?”

“I don’t know any more than you do, 3PO,” Mom answers patiently.

They run across the surface of one of the asteroids until they reach a giant crater. The _Falcon_ swoops into the crater.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Leia tells Han.

“Yeah, me too,” he answers as he flies into a cave of some sort. It’s not comforting. “I’m going to shut down everything but the emergency power systems,” Han says, flipping switches.

“Sir, I’m almost afraid to ask, but does that mean… me?” C-3PO asks.

Chewbacca barks something that is clearly a “yes”. Han, however, seems to disagree.

“We need you to talk to the _Falcon_ , find out what’s wrong with the hyperdrive.”

The ship lurches. Leia grabs onto one of the seats.

“Sir, it’s quite possible that this asteroid is not entirely stable.”

Han’s face is the picture of annoyance. “Not entirely stable? I’m so glad we have you to tell us these things. Chewie, take the professor here into the back and plug him into the hyperdrive.”

C-3PO starts complaining as Chewbacca leads them back.

“I’ll go with them,” Mom says. “Chewbacca’s less likely to tear 3PO’s head off if he has a witness.” She follows them.

The ship rocks again, flinging Leia back and into Han, who catches her. The ship stills and she becomes abruptly aware of how close he is, how warm.

“Let go of me,” she says, uncomfortable for no good damn reason, not sure she’s entirely against him ignoring the request.

“Ssh,” he replies, listening intently to something.

“Let go, please.” She’s blushing, she can feel it.

“Don’t get excited.”

Now the anger rises in her. “Captain,” she tells him tartly. “Being held by you isn’t quite enough to get me excited.”

“Sorry, sweetheart.” He pushes her off of him a little and smirks at her. “Haven’t got time for anything else.”

He heads to the back, still grinning, leaving her alone; flushed, conflicted, and furious all at once.

 

Chewbacca told Leia through her mother that the most helpful thing she could be doing was welding some valves and then reengaging the system. She finishes the welding in her secluded spot and tries to pull the level. It won’t move.

Another pair of hands wrap around hers on the lever, trying to pull it back. She doesn’t like how comforting it feels. She elbows him back.

“Hey, Your Worship,” Han says, sounding milder than his words. “I’m only trying to help.”

“Would you please stop calling me that?” She pulls on the lever harder.

“Sure, Leia.”

Him saying her actual name sends tingles through her body. “Ugh, you make it so _difficult_ sometimes.”

“I do, I really do.” He doesn’t sound sorry. “You could be a little nicer sometimes, though.” She hesitates. “Come on, admit it. Sometimes you think I’m all right.”

She finally gives up on the lever and massages her aching hand. “Occasionally.” She lets herself smile slightly. “When you aren’t being a scoundrel.”

Han chuckles. “Scoundrel? Scoundrel. I like the sound of that.”

He takes her hand and starts to rub it for her.

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“My hands are dirty.” It’s the best possible excuse she can think of, which is also the worst possible excuse.

“My hands are dirty, too. What are you afraid of?”

She finally allows herself to meet his eyes. She shouldn’t have. They make her feel far too vulnerable.

“Afraid?”

He takes her other hand and holds it in his own, not even pretending to stroke her hands anymore. “You’re trembling.”

“I’m not trembling.”

He slowly starts pulling Leia in towards him, slow enough that she could stop him if she really wanted to. She doesn’t.

“I happen to like _nice_ men.”

“I’m a nice man.”

“No, you’re not, you’re-“

He kisses her then, and it feels like the culmination of everything that has been building between them. It feels startlingly _right_ , like this critical mass is how it’s always supposed to have been.

“Sir, sir!”

They break apart at C-3PO’s interruption, Leia jumping slightly. Han looks murderous as he turns towards him.

“I’ve isolated the reverse power coupling!”

Leia slips away quietly, the rightness gone, leaving only confusion left in its wake.

 

She sits in the pilot’s seat, running her hand along the control panel absently. Mom comes in and Leia glances up at her.

“I thought I’d check in on you. I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Yes, I’ve been… how are the repairs on the ship going?”

“Han’s fairly confident that he’ll be able to get the hyperdrive working again.” Something in her face must change at the mention of Han. “Are you all right?”

“I just…” She takes a deep breath. “Has anyone just ever infuriated you _so much_ but they’re so… they’re so important that it doesn’t seem to matter, and at the same time it matters, but they’re the _only_ thing that matters?”

She looks thoughtful and opens her mouth to speak, but then something suddenly attaches itself to the window of the ship. Both Leia and her mother jump and turn to see large yellow eyes. Leia skitters back and her mother leaps out of her chair. There’s a screech, and the eyes are gone.

Leia dashes back to the hold area as Han resettles a floor panel, her mother close behind. “There’s something out there.”

He looks up, blinks in surprise, like he hadn’t expected to see her again. “Where?”

“Outside, in the cave.”

_Bang bang bang_ on the hull. Chewbacca growls a little anxiously. 

“I’m going out there,” Han says, striding out of the hold area. Leia follows him.

“Are you _crazy?_ ”

“I just got this bucket back together again, I’m not going to let something tear it apart.” He and Chewbacca grab breath masks out of the storage area. Leia grabs one and Mom grabs the other.

“Then we’re going with you.”

The cave is dark, and the floor is all wrong. It springs back when Leia steps on it.

“This ground feels strong. It doesn’t feel like rock at all.”

Han examines the ground, then looks around him.

“Awful lot of moisture in here.”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” her mother mutters.

“Yeah,” Han agrees.

Chewbacca barks something and points at the cockpit. A leathery thing is climbing alongside the windows. It screeches and flies at them. 

“Watch out!” Han shoots at it and it lands at Leia’s feet. He studies it. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Mynocks. Chewie, check the rest of the ship, make sure there aren’t anymore attached.” He turns to Leia and her mother. “They’re chewing on the power cables. Go on inside, we’ll clean them off if there are any more.”

A flock of the creatures suddenly fly through the air. Leia puts up her arms to try and bat the creatures away from herself. The swarm departs and Han looks like a realization is dawning on him.

“Wait a minute.” He shoots at the wall and the cave rocks again. Leia almost falls, catching her mother as Mom starts to topple. “All right, Chewie, let’s get out of here.” Han and Chewbacca rush for the ship, Leia and Mom following.

“The Empire is still out there,” Leia points out. “I don’t think it’s wise to-“

“No time to discuss this in committee.”

The ship shakes again and Leia bounces off the walls, scowling. “I am not a committee!”

Her mother checks on C-3PO as Leia follows Han to the cockpit. Han jumps in the pilot’s seat.

“You can’t make the jump to light speed in an asteroid field!”

“Sit down, sweetheart, we’re taking off!”

Her mother and C-3PO join them. “Look!” her mother points.

“I see it, ma’am.” 

A row of jagged white stones are encircling the cave entrance, the cave growing smaller the closer they get. Han surges the ship forwards.

“The cave is collapsing?”

“This is no cave.”

“What?” Mom asks.

Leia suddenly realizes that the stones are not stones, but in fact giant teeth, closing around them. The _Falcon_ turns sharply to the side, just barely sliding between the two white teeth. They escape whatever creature they were within, charging back into the asteroid field from whence they came.

 

It doesn’t take long for the _Falcon_ to get slammed by a blast from a Star Destroyer. 

“Ready for lightspeed?” Han asks. They all nod. “Three… two… one…”

Nothing happens yet again. Leia slumps in her seat behind Han.

“It’s not fair,” he whispers in horror. “The transfer circuits are working, it’s not my fault!”

“So no lightspeed?” her mother asks.

“It’s not my fault,” he repeats. Mom reaches across from her seat behind Chewbacca and puts a comforting hand on Han’s shoulder.

“I never said it was.”

“Sir, we just lost the main rear deflector shield,” C-3PO says. “One more direct hit on the back quarter and we’re done for.”

Han looks like he’s considering his options. He seems to decide on one, pulling a lever.

“Turn her around.”

Chewbacca questions him.

“Turn her around! I’m going to put all power in the front shield.”

“You’re going to attack them?” Leia demands, stunned.

“Sir, the odds of surviving an attack on a Star Destroyer-“ C-3PO starts. 

“Shut up,” her mother snaps, in an uncharacteristic display of anger towards the droid. “I know what he’s doing.”

Han glances at her mother, who gives him a nod. He turns back to gazing out the window, courage seemingly slightly bolstered.

The _Falcon_ heads straight for the window of the ship, close enough that Leia can see tiny figures through it. Then the ship veers sharply up at the last minute. Han settles right on the back of the ship, camouflaged perfectly.

“Captain Solo,” C-3PO snaps. “This time you have gone too far. No, I will _not_ be quiet, Chewbacca, why doesn’t anyone _listen_ to me?”

“The fleet is beginning to break up. Chewie, ma’am, go back and stand by the manual release for the landing claw.”

Chewbacca and her mother file out. 

“I really don’t see how that is going to help,” C-3PO says peevishly. “Surrender is a perfectly acceptable alternative in extreme circumstances. The Empire may be gracious enough to-“

Leia switches him off, doing her best to ignore the coldness that settles in her veins at the thought of surrendering to Vader. “What did you have in mind for your next move?” she asks Han.

“Well, if they follow standard Imperial procedure, they’ll dump their garbage before they go to lightspeed, then we just float away.”

“With the rest of the garbage.” Leia nods. “Then what?”

“Then we’ve got to find a safe port somewhere around here. Any ideas?”

“No. Where are we?”

Han checks. “The Anoat system.”

She bends over his shoulder. “Anoat. There’s not much here.” 

“Wait. This is interesting.” He calls something up. “Lando.”

“The Lando system?”

“Lando’s not a system, he’s a person. Card player, gambler, scoundrel. You’d like him.”

“Thanks,” she returns dryly.

“Bespin. It’s pretty far, but we can make it.”

Leia reads the specs Han pulled up. “A mining colony?”

“Yeah, a Tibanna gas mine. Lando conned somebody out of it. We go way back, Lando and me.”

“Can we trust him?”

“No,” Han answers reassuringly. “But he has no love for the Empire, I’ll tell you that.”

Chewbacca says something over the intercom. Han glances up at it, changes the specs on the computer, stands and looks out the cockpit window.

“Here we go. Chewie, Padmé, detach!”

Han sits back in his seat and gives Leia the barest hint of a tentative smile. She thinks about it for a moment, then decides to stop thinking about it and kiss him on the cheek.

“You do have your moments. Not many. But you have them.”

 

They approach the city. It’s gorgeous, clouds hanging in the air around the small facility. Her mother smiles, looking faintly nostalgic.

“I came here once on a mission for the Senate,” she tells Leia. “It was a lot grungier back then. Anakin and your Aunt Ahsoka had to escort me.”

Han looks startled. “You knew Anakin Skywalker? The war hero?”

Leia’s stomach lurches and she swallows. Her mother seems calm.

“Yes. He was the twins’s biological father.”

Han twists around in his seat to look at Leia in surprise.

“We don’t talk about him,” she says, her cold tone echoing dully in her skull.

“Why n-“

Two twin-pod vessels suddenly flank them. The transmitter squawks demanding if they have a permit. One of them blasts the ship.

“No, I don’t have a permit,” Han snaps, attention thankfully diverted from the question of Leia’s birth parentage. “I’m trying to reach Lando Calrissian.”

Another burst. The ship shakes.

“Wait a minute! Let me explain!”

“You will not deviate from your present course.”

“Are you sure you know this person?” Mom asks.

Chewbacca growls.

“That was a long time ago, I’m sure he’s forgotten that.”

“Permission granted to land on Platform 327.”

“Thank you.”

Han turns back to Padmé and Leia. “There’s nothing to worry about. Lando and me, we go way back.”

Leia feels concerned anyway. “Who’s worried?”

 

They dock, and all walk down the ramp. No one’s arrived at the doors in front of them.

“Oh,” C-3PO observes. “No one to meet us.”

“I don’t like this,” Leia mutters.

“What would you like?”

“They did let us land,” C-3PO points out.

“You’re far too trusting, 3PO,” Mom murmurs.

“Look, don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine.”

The doors open and a dashing man dressed all in blue strides through them, surrounded by droids, humans, and non-humans. He looks grim.

“See?” Han says, undeterred by the seriousness on the man’s face. He turns to Chewbacca and says in a low voice “keep your eyes open, okay?”, evidently thinking that Leia and Mom can’t hear.

Han walks across the bridge and stops halfway. The man who must be Lando Calrissian walks forwards as well, stopping a short distance from Han.

“Why, you slimy, no good, double crossing swindler!” he snarls. “You’ve got a lot of guts coming back here, after what you pulled.”

Han points at himself, mouthing “me?”. Leia wants to facepalm, or groan, or both.

Lando moves towards Han, who quickly puts his hands up to ward off an attack. Lando laughs, and hugs him. After a startled second, Han hugs back.

“How you doing, you old pirate?” Lando pulls back. “I never thought I’d catch up with you again! Where have you been?”

“He seems very friendly,” C-3PO says.

“Yes,” Leia whispers back warily. “Very friendly.”

“What are you doing here?” Lando asks.

“Ah, repairs. I thought you could help me out.”

“What have you done to my ship?”

Han seems offended. “ _Your_ ship? Hey, remember, you lost her to me fair and square.”

Lando suddenly notices Mom and Leia and smiles charmingly.

“ _Hel_ lo. What have we here? I’m Lando Calrissian, the administrator of this facility.” He kisses her hand.

Leia can’t deny she’s a little amused by his sudden change in tone, or by the look on Han’s face, but she’s still unwilling to give him any more information than necessary. “Leia.”

“Padmé Kenobi,” her mother says, also looking amused. Lando’s smile falters slightly. 

“Of the Rebellion? Senator Padmé Amidala Kenobi?”

“That’s right.”

Lando affixes the smile once more. “I remember you well. Welcome to my jurisdiction.”

He hasn’t released her hand. Leia’s about to pull it away when Han takes it out of Lando’s hand into his own.

“All right, you old smoothie.”

He leads her by the hand away from Lando, and she can’t help her smile.

Perhaps everything will be all right after all.

 

C-3PO disappears. She paces back and forth in the accommodations Lando has provided for her. She’s showered, her hair in double braided loops. She’s wearing a clean red dress, a sleeveless blue robe over it.

Han enters. “The ship’s almost finished. Two or three more things and we’re in great shape.”

“The sooner the better.” She strides up to him. “Something’s wrong here. No one has seen or knows anything about 3PO. He’s been gone far too long to be lost.”

Han puts his hands on her shoulder and softly kisses her on the forehead. “Relax. I’ll talk to Lando and see what he knows.”

“I don’t _trust_ Lando,” she answers.

“I don’t trust him either. But he _is_ my friend. Besides, we’ll soon be gone.”

“And then _you’re_ as good as gone, aren’t you?” she asks quietly. Han searches her face and says nothing.

The door opens and Chewbacca walks in, holding a case full of C-3PO’s arms and legs. Leia stands and peers at the box.

“What happened?”

Chewbacca grunts.

“Where?” Han asks. “Found him in a junk pile?”

“Oh, what a mess,” she sighs. “Chewie, do you think you can fix him?”

Chewbacca shrugs.

“Lando’s got people who can fix him.”

She huffs. “No, thank you.”

The door slides once more and Lando comes in with her mother. She’s got her hair back, wearing a hooded shirt that appears to be both a blazer and a long sleeved shirt and a knee length skirt.

“Am I interrupting something?” Lando asks. 

“Not really.”

“Lando was just explaining the politics of Cloud City,” Mom tells her. “Very interesting.”

“Very,” Lando agrees. He gives that sunny smile at Leia again. “You look absolutely beautiful. You truly belong here among the clouds.”

“Thank you,” Leia says, a little imperious. 

“Will you join me for some refreshment?” He takes in Han’s frown and amends his question. “Everyone’s invited, of course.” Lando proffers his arm, then notes the box of C-3PO. “Having trouble with your droid?”

Han and Leia look at each other. Her mother’s face is a mask of polite concern. 

“No,” Han answers. “No problem. Why?” Leia takes Han’s arm instead and they all leave.

 

“So, you see, since we’re such a small operation, we don’t exactly fall under the… jurisdiction of the Empire,” Lando explains.

“So you’re part of the mining guild?” Leia asks.

“No, not actually. Our operation is small enough not to be noticed. Which is advantageous for everybody since our customers are anxious to avoid attracting attention to themselves.”

A large door becomes the clear object of their goal. 

“Aren’t you afraid the Empire’s going to find out about this little operation and shut you down?”

“That's always been a danger looming like a shadow over everything we've built here.But things have developed that will insure security. I've just made a deal that will keep the Empire out of here forever.”

The door opens to reveal Darth Vader rising from his seat at the head of the table, Boba Fett by his side. Han grabs Leia’s hand as he adjusts himself in front of her, shooting at him. Vader deflects the bolts with the Force and summons Han’s blaster to him. He puts it on the table.

“We would be honored,” Vader intones. “If you would join us.”

Stormtroopers surround them and Han gives Lando a nasty look.

“I had no choice. They arrived right before you did. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” Han says. “I’m sorry, too.”

 

Leia sits in the cell, now in white prisoner’s clothing. She leans her head into Han’s shoulder, her stomach a knot. They led her mother away separately when they escorted them to their hold.

“Can you reach your brother?” Han asks. Leia shakes her head.

“Vader’s abilities are too powerful. He’s blocking me.”

The door slides open and her mother is shoved in by Stormtroopers, now also in prisoner garb. Darth Vader comes in ominously.

“I want the girl,” he tells the Stormtroopers. They drag Leia off the ground.

“No.” Han’s on his feet, too. “Take me instead, do what you want to me-“

“That can be arranged, Captain Solo.” Leia is hauled out of the room and down the corridor into a white room where a table and two chairs across from it are seated. Leia is shoved roughly into hers and Vader sits calmly across from her. The Stormtroopers leave.

There’s silence for at least a minute before Vader says “Padmé told me that you are my child and not Kenobi’s.”

Anger surges in Leia’s throat. “Obi-Wan Kenobi was my father,” she tells him. “You are just something very, very small and very, very inconvenient in my world.”

“Your anger is great. But so is your fear.”

She feels her lips twist into a smile, cruel and bitter. “Didn’t you see our message, Lord Vader? My fear keeps me strong. Stronger than you will ever be.”

Vader pauses.

“Join me.”

“ _Why?_ ”

“Because you could be powerful at my side. The Emperor wants your brother because he is training to be a Jedi. He would never see our alliance coming. We could all three rule the galaxy, father and children.”

Leia raises her chin so she’s gazing where Vader’s eyes should be. “And tell me,” she says, dignity dripping from every syllable. “What did my mother say, when you made the same offer to her?”

Vader is silent.

“You have tortured me. You have hunted down myself and my brother and my mother and my friends. What could I possibly want to have to do with you?” She tilts her head. “You are not my father. You are not my friend. You are nothing. You are _less_ than nothing, and you will lose this war, the same way you have lost _me._ ”

Her chair skids backwards against the floor until it slams into the wall. 

“ _I am not nothing._ ”

Leia blinks the spots from her vision. “You are to me.”

Vader strides to the door. It opens and she’s pushed at the Stormtroopers. “Escort her back to her cell.”

 

When she arrives, Han is gone. 

“They took him,” her mother explains. “Not long after they took you.”

They wait at least another hour of Chewbacca putting C-3PO back together until Han is thrust back into their cell.

“I feel terrible,” he mumbles, and then Chewbacca catches him as he’s about to fall. Han lays him on the ground and Leia kneels by him.

“Why are they doing this?” she asks softly.

“They never even asked any questions.”

The door slides open and Lando enters. She helps Han to his feet.

“Get out of here, Lando,” Han snarls.

“Shut up and listen,” Lando snaps back. “Vader has agreed to turn Leia, Padmé, and Chewie over to me.”

“Over to _you?_ ”

“They’ll have to stay here, but at least they’ll be safe.”

“Safe?” Mom asks, tone chilly. “With you?”

“What about Han?” Leia presses.

“Vader’s giving him to the bounty hunter.”

“Vader wants us all dead.” 

“He doesn’t want you at all. He’s after somebody named Kenobi.”

“Luke?” Han asks.

“Vader’s set a trap for him.”

“And we’re the bait,” Leia mutters.

“He’s on his way.”

“Luke Kenobi,” her mother says, voice fully cold now. “Is my son.”

Regret flickers across Lando’s face. It’s nothing compared to the rage on Han’s. 

“You fixed us all pretty good, didn’t you, _my friend?_ ” Han punches Lando in the face. The guards hit Han with the ends of the rifles and he lands on the ground. Leia kneels by him instantly. The blasters swivel to face Chewbacca as he advances on them, but Lando puts himself between them.

“Stop it! I’ve done all I can. I’m sorry I couldn’t do better, but I have my own problems.”

“Yes,” her mother says crisply. “You’re a real hero.”

Han wipes the blood from his chin as Lando leaves. Leia checks the wound. It’s not severe.

“You certainly have a way with people,” she murmurs.

He lies back down and she puts his head in her lap, running her fingers through his hair. Mom glances at them, then sits on the one bench in the room. She slowly lies down on it and closes her eyes.

“Vader,” Han mumbles. “He’s your father, isn’t he?”

Leia’s hands still. “Yes,” she whispers. Terror rises that Han will recoil from her in disgust, blame her for all of Vader’s evils.

Han heaves a sigh.

“Well,” he says, eyes drifting shut. “It’s not the first time a woman’s father has tried to kill me.”

Leia doesn’t know what to say or how to say it, so instead she kisses his face over and over, like it’ll fix everything or anything at all.

 

They’re escorted to a chamber of some kind, a round hole in the middle of the room.

“What’s going on, buddy?” Han spits at Lando.

“You’re being put into carbon freeze,” Lando answers, face dismayed. 

“What if he doesn’t survive?” Boba Fett asks Vader dispassionately as Leia’s stomach lurches. “He’s no use to me dead.”

“The Empire will compensate you if he dies. Put him in.”

Chewbacca roars and attacks the Stormtroopers. They begin clubbing him their guns. 3PO starts babbling from Chewbacca’s back, begging him to stop.

“Stop, Chewie, stop!” Han yells. “Do you hear me? Stop!” He breaks away from the guards holding him and Vader lets him be to break up the fight. “Chewie, this won’t solve anything!” He points at Chewbacca. “Save your strength. There’ll be another time. The Princess and the Senator, you have to take care of them. You hear me?”

Chewbacca hums mournfully. Han looks at Mom.

“Sorry I couldn’t protect them, ma’am.”

Her mother’s smile is a little tearful. “You have nothing to apologize for, Captain Solo.”

He turns to Leia, who brings him in for a desperate kiss. The Stormtroopers pull him away, drag him and prep him for carbonite freezing.

“I love you,” Leia calls, now seeming as important a time as any, now seeming like the last time.

“I know,” Han replies, his brave smile only wavering slightly. 

“If you do this,” her mother says quietly, looking at Vader. “This is it. I will never forgive you.”

Vader says nothing.

Leia can’t stop the tears rolling down her face as the platform suddenly drops. She presses her face into Chewbacca, who puts an arm around her. She can feel her mother gripping her shoulders.

They pull him out, the slab flat on both sides except for Han, his arms up as though to ward off the freezing. Lando kneels down, studying the measurements on the side.

“Well, Calrissian?” Vader asks imperiously. “Did he survive?”

“Yes. And in perfect hibernation.”

Vader turns to Fett. “He’s all yours, bounty hunter. Reset the chamber for Kenobi.”

An officer approaches Vader. “Kenobi has just landed, my lord.”

“Good. See to it that he finds his way here. Calrissian, take the Princess, the Wookiee, and the Senator to my ship.”

“You said they’d be left in the city under my supervision.”

“I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”

 

They’re being escorted down a hallway, Fett levitating Han ahead of them, when two of the Stormtroopers fire down a side corridor. The blaster fire is returned, and Leia turns to see her brother.

“Luke!” she bellows desperately. “Luke, don’t! It’s a trap! Luke!” She can hear her mother screaming Luke’s name, too.

The Stormtroopers drag them away before they can say anything more.

 

They reach an intersection where a squad of guards immediately pointed their guns at the surprised Stormtroopers. They take the Stormtroopers’s guns and Lobot, Lando’s aide, hands one to Leia, one to her mother, and one to Lando.

“Well done,” Lando says. “Hold them in the security tower. Keep it quiet. Move.”

Lobot follows the instructions as Lando undoes Chewbacca’s binding.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Her mother asks.

“We’re getting out of here.”

The second Chewbacca’s bindings are loose, he starts to throttle Lando. 

“Chewbacca,” her mother orders. “Enough.”

Lando is released and he gasps for air.

“Do you think that after what you did to Han we’re going to trust you?” Leia demands. 

“I had no choice,” Lando wheezes.

“Oh, we understand, don’t we, Chewie? Don’t we, Mom?” There’s a red mist forming over Leia’s eyes. “ _You had no choice._ ”

“Leia,” her mother says quietly.

“And then what you’ve done to my brother?”

Lando starts gasping for breath again. Leia’s too furious to wonder why.

“To two of the people I love most in the galaxy?”

“Leia,” her mother repeats, a little louder.

“ _We don’t need any of your help._ ”

“Leia!” her mother shouts. “Look!”

Leia stares at Lando, who’s grasping at his throat. She puts his lack of air and the strength of her fury, the way it whispers, together, and abruptly slams her connection to the Force down. Lando slumps to the ground, heaving for breath.

“We don’t need any of your help,” she repeats, trying to keep the tremble out of her voice and her hands from shaking.

“There’s still a chance to save Han,” he chokes. “At the East Platform.”

Hope rises in Leia. “Let’s go.” She motions down the corridor, not meeting her mother’s eyes.

 

R2-D2 meets them as they run down the corridor, quickly rolling to keep up. C-3PO immediately starts chattering with him. Just as they arrive, they see Boba Fett’s ship, floating away into the clouds. Leia feels her entire body shake just once. 

A blaster bolt hits nearby and she turns around, firing instantly. She feels her fury come back and tries to keep it from becoming the little voice in the back of her head. She and Chewbacca and shoot, ignoring Lando motioning furiously at them to get into the elevator he’s in. After a moment her mother puts a hand on her shoulder, and leads Leia to Lando. Chewbacca follows.

 

Lando frantically types numbers into the lock for the hangar.

“The security codes have been changed!”

“R2, tell the computer to override the security system,” C-3PO says, pointing at the door panel. Lando manages to get into the intercom.

“Attention! This is Lando Calrissian. The Empire has taken control of the city. I advise everyone to leave before more Imperial troops arrive.”

R2-D2 screams and is flung backwards, smoking. 

“This way,” Lando says, jerking his head. They all run after him, C-3PO and R2-D2 bickering on the way.

R2-D2 manages to get _this_ door to the hangar open, and he emits a cloud fog to hide their exit. They run up the ramp, still shooting behind them. Leia sits in Han’s seat as Chewbacca sits in his, Lando and Mom over their shoulders. The ship takes off into the twilit sky.

“Don’t go far,” her mother commands.

“Don’t go-“ Lando starts.

“You’re the one who got my brother into this mess,” Leia snaps. “I’ll be damned if you keep me from getting him out.”

Lando silences. Leia reaches out to Luke but feels nothing. Vader’s still blocking her.

“Lando, Mom, you take fire at the TIE fighters behind us. Chewie and I are going to circle the city until I hear from Luke.”

It feels like forever, Chewbacca weaving and spiraling to avoid the TIE fighters, her mother and Lando shooting them down as quickly as they arrive. 

It feels like forever. Leia doesn’t know how long it takes. But eventually she hears something weak.

_Leia…_

_Luke?_

_Leia… hear me… under Cloud City… Leia…_

“I’ve got him,” Leia says. “Bring us to under the city.”

 

Leia’s stomach lurches when she sees Luke hanging upside down on a weather vane. He seems barely conscious, the spark of his life hardly registering on Leia’s wavelength. 

“Chewie, slow down,” she orders. “We’ll get under him. Mom, open the top hatch.”

Her mother disappears as they get below Luke. She waits with bated breath.

“I’ve got him,” her mother says over the intercom. “Let’s go.”

“Lando, take over.” She meets Luke and her mother halfway. Luke is battered and bruised. He’s missing a hand.

“Oh, Leia.”

Leia hugs him tightly. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she whispers over and over again. She takes him back to the sleeping quarters, puts his wrist in a cuff to keep it from getting damaged.

“It’s going to be all right,” she murmurs. “Luke, I’m so sorry I didn’t warn you, I’m so sorry.”

Luke seems shellshocked. He’s looking off into space, clearly not with her. She continues her apologies anyway, hoping they penetrate in some way.

The ship lurches and she glances towards the cockpit.

“I’ll be right back,” she promises, and kisses his forehead.

She heads for the cockpit. Her mother looks at her.

“How is he?”

“I don’t know.” She recognizes the blip of a shape in front of them. “Star Destroyer.”

“All right, Chewie.” Lando begins prepping. “Prepare for hyperdrive.”

“If your people fixed it.” The lights start flashing. “All the co-ordinates are set. It’s now or never.”

“Punch it!”

Nothing happens.

“They told me they fixed it,” Lando says frantically. “I trusted them to fix it. It’s not my fault!”

He reminds Leia of another _it’s not my fault_ and her heart aches.

Luke stumbles into the cockpit.

“Vader,” he mumbles. “Dad, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?” Mom asks. Luke’s still not there.

“It’s Vader.”

They’re suddenly thrown back as the hyperdrive kicks in, leading them away from the Star Destroyer and into the stars.

 

“What didn’t Papa tell you?” Leia asks. 

It’s about a month later. They’re carefully constructing Luke’s new hand. Luke’s bruises are almost healed. Lando has obviously tried his hardest to redeem himselves in their eyes, reaching out to all his smuggling contacts to try and find Han, assisting Mom in whatever she needs.

Luke looks at her.

“Do you know why Vader turned to the Dark Side?” he asks.

“Power, I assume.” She knows it isn’t true as she says it.

“He did it for us. He saw Mama struggling in childbirth, thought she was dying, thought _we_ were. He turned to the Dark Side because the Emperor promised we would survive.” Luke looks haunted. “It’s our fault.”

Leia shakes her head vehemently. “No. What he did, _he_ did. His actions don’t reflect on you, or on Mom, or on I.”

“Do you still feel responsible for Alderaan?”

Leia doesn’t answer. 

“Exactly.” He swallows. “He did what he did for love. What’s to stop us from doing the same thing?”

“I was tempted,” she tells him quietly. “On Cloud City, after Han.” She’s only just starting to be able to say his name again. “I Force choked Lando.”

Luke doesn’t say anything, but takes her hand with his working one.

 

Another two weeks pass before the _Falcon_ is ready to find Han and Luke’s hand is done. 

“Luke, we’re ready for takeoff,” Lando tells him over the comlink.

“Good luck, Lando.”

“When we find Jabba the Hutt and the bounty hunter, we’ll contact you.”

“I’ll meet you at the rendezvous point on Tatooine.”

“Princess.”

Leia looks up. 

“We’ll find him, I promise.”

“Chewbacca, we’ll be waiting for your signal,” she says. She doesn’t want to snub Lando. He knows she just doesn’t know how to say anything right now. Chewbacca growls an affirmative.

“Take care, you two. May the Force be with you.”

Luke looks down at his new hand, the medical droid adjusting something. Then it jabs each of Luke’s fingers.

“Ow!” He wiggles his fingers and then makes a fist. 

Leia smiles at it working, then stands and looks out the wide window at the galaxy swirling before her. Her mother stands next to her, linking her hand with her daughter’s. Luke comes up and slings an arm around her shoulders. Together they stand as a family, gazing out at the uncertain stars.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Some more notes:
> 
> -For this story and ROTJ, these stories will be largely the twins's. Padmé isn't in it as much as the first one because of that. If I ever get around to ROTJ, she probably won't be in that as much as the first one, either. Pre-ANH/ANH belonged to Padmé. Leia's story seems to be the most fleshed out in TESB, so I gave her that one. Luke's arc comes full circle in ROTJ, so ROTJ will most likely be told from his perspective.
> 
> -I haven't seen TESB in a long time. Please assume that any irregular blocking is due to the canon change in the universe.
> 
> -Many thanks to imsdb.com for the TESB script. Without them, this story would not exist.
> 
> Padmé's hair during the transmission: http://attackoftheclothes.tumblr.com/post/120034398222/hairstyle-headpiece-for-leia-organa-valentino  
> Padmé's dress during the transmission: http://attackoftheclothes.tumblr.com/post/151130172122/princess-leia-organa-at-the-court-of-the-aldera
> 
> Leia's dress during the transmission: http://attackoftheclothes.tumblr.com/post/149375754970/princess-leia-at-state-dinner-at-the-aldera  
> (I've lost Leia's hair inspiration, but if I find it again, I'll put it here)
> 
> Luke's outfit during the transmission: http://attackoftheclothes.tumblr.com/post/119045448914/travelling-attire-for-bail-organa-atelier-gustavo
> 
> Leia's outfit on Jakku: http://starwarstyle.tumblr.com/post/151398355620/action-attire-for-leia-organa-balmain-spring-2016
> 
> Padmé's outfit on Cloud City: http://attackoftheclothes.tumblr.com/post/149624760133/business-attire-for-rey-armani-priv%C3%A9-couture


End file.
